What Is EXIF? A Guide to the Data Inside Your Photos
EXIF is a bundle of information that digital cameras and smartphones write into the photo file alongside the image. You don't see it when you look at the picture, but open up the file and it records when, with what, and where the photo was taken.
1. What is EXIF?
EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File Format, a standard way of recording shooting information inside a photo file. Think of the date and place people used to write by hand on the back of a printed photo; the camera now writes that into the file automatically. Formats such as JPEG, HEIC and TIFF usually carry this information, and similar data can also be stored in PNG and WebP.
2. What information does it contain?
| Date taken | The date and time the photo was taken. It's based on the camera's clock, so it can differ from the real time. |
|---|---|
| Device | Manufacturer and model name, lens, and operating system or firmware version. |
| Camera settings | Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, and whether the flash fired. |
| Location (GPS) | If location recording is on, latitude, longitude and altitude. This can pinpoint a spot to within a few meters. |
| Image details | Resolution, orientation (portrait or landscape rotation), and color space. |
| Editing and author | The name of the software used to edit the photo, plus author or copyright text. |
| Embedded thumbnail | A small preview image. Even after you crop a photo, it can sometimes still show the picture as it was before cropping. |
How accurate is the location?
EXIF coordinates are usually recorded to many decimal places. One unit in the fifth decimal place of latitude is roughly one meter (about three feet), so with a good smartphone GPS fix, someone could narrow it down to a specific building or even its entrance. Indoors or underground, the error can grow to tens of meters.
3. Why should you be careful?
Most of this information is harmless, but location coordinates are different. The coordinates of a photo taken inside your home are essentially your home address. If they go along with a photo you post on a marketplace like Facebook Marketplace or eBay, or send to someone you've just met, they can reveal where you live.
Put together, dates and device details can also hint at your daily routine. On the other hand, this information is useful too: sorting photos by date and seeing travel photos on a map both rely on EXIF. So rather than turning everything off, a realistic habit is to strip it only when you send photos to other people.
4. Other metadata besides EXIF
- XMP: a format used mainly by editing software, holding things like edit history and keywords.
- IPTC: a format used in news and professional photography, which can include the author, caption, and city or country names.
- Appended data: some phones' "motion photos" save a short video attached to the end of the photo file.
PhotoBookInfo reads EXIF, XMP and IPTC together and shows the key points in a summary at the top. When it creates a clean copy, it removes all of this, including any data appended to the end of the file.
5. How to check your photo's EXIF
- iPhone: open the photo in the Photos app and swipe up to see the device, lens, camera settings and a map.
- Galaxy: open the photo in Gallery and swipe up to see the details and a location map.
- Windows: right-click the file and open Properties > Details. Step-by-step guide
- Mac: open the photo in Preview and choose Tools > Show Inspector. Step-by-step guide
Built-in apps often show only some of the fields. To see everything that's actually in the file, open the photo in PhotoBookInfo. The summary shows Date taken, Camera, Location, Edits and Size, and expanding "Full metadata" below it shows every field. Your photo never leaves your device.
Check what your photo is carryingPhotoBookInfo reads photos inside your browser and never uploads them. It tells you if a location is stored and makes a clean copy for you.
Check a photo